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IOC fails to defend fair play: Editorial

By refusing to ban Russian athletes from the Rio Olympic Games the IOC has betrayed clean competitors worldwide.

The International Olympic Committee, led by president Thomas Bach, has decided not to ban the Russian team from the Rio Olympics. (FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Mon., July 25, 2016

Dispelling any lingering doubt, the International Olympic Committee confirmed over the weekend that it is driven by influence and money — even at the expense of fair play.

Spurning the advice of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the IOC’s executive board voted Sunday against banning Russian athletes from competing in the Rio de Janeiro games. That’s despite the worst doping scandal in Olympic history: a years-long, state-sponsored campaign of Russian cheating in almost 30 different summer and winter sports, tainting the results of hundreds of events.

Adding insult to that injury, IOC president Thomas Bach described the board’s deplorable decision as “doing justice to clean athletes all over the world.” Imagine the laughter in the Kremlin on publication of those words.

The IOC could have sent a clear message, worldwide, that cheating would not be tolerated in Olympic sport. Instead it issued the opposite signal: not even the worst government-sponsored swindle warrants a national ban.

In explaining that decision, Bach said a blanket ban wouldn’t have been fair to Russian athletes who didn’t cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs. It’s true a collective punishment hurts the innocent as well as the guilty, but the Olympic movement hasn’t shied away from banning nations in the past when a principle was deemed to justify such action.

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Athletes representing South Africa were, for years, blocked from participating in the Olympic Games due to that nation’s vile apartheid policy. This ban was entirely justified, even though it affected black South African athletes, and any white athlete who might not be racist. The point was that this country’s system was so reprehensible it justified a collective sanction.

The IOC clearly doesn’t consider Russia’s systemic corruption of sport as an abuse rising to a level which warrants a ban. In its view, stopping apartheid deserved the strongest possible action, but not ensuring fair play. It’s reasonable to expect more from an organization ostensibly dedicated to “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” (Once again: cue laughter in the Kremlin.)

Instead of imposing an outright ban on Russian athletes going to Rio, the IOC left it to each of 28 international sports organizations to decide which entrants should be allowed to compete.

The International Association of Athletics Federations, quite rightly, announced last November that it wouldn’t allow Russian track and field athletes to participate. But other associations aren’t as principled, or even sufficiently organized to make reliable decisions with less than two weeks before competition starts.

The goal seems to be to allow participation of Russian athletes who have never tested positive for use of performance—enhancing drugs — conveniently neglecting the fact that many perpetrators haven’t been caught precisely because the Russian state set up a system enabling them to cheat with impunity.

In refusing to impose a ban, supposedly on behalf of “clean” Russian competitors, the IOC is betraying honest athletes the world over. In doing so, it has undermined the entire Olympic movement.

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